PopCap survey shows 44 percent of people play mobile games

Today, developer PopCap (maker of Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies) has released the results of its third annual survey of mobile game consumption in the United States and United Kingdom. And, no surprise, the number of people playing mobile games is growing.

Research group Information Solutions compiled the data, which shows overall increases in number of users, play time, and money spent on games and add-on content due to continuing strong sales of tablet computers like Apple iPads and Amazon Kindles bringing new people into the mobile space.

Some key points from the results include:

More than 4 in 10 (44 percent) of adults surveyed had played at least one mobile game in the past month – an increase of 29 percent compared to just a year ago.

Nearly one in ten respondents (9 percent) became a new mobile gamer in the past year by playing one or more games on a recently acquired tablet.

Phones and computers are the most common game devices (33 percent and 32 percent respectively), with dedicated consoles trailing behind at 18 percent.

The number of people who play daily is up by 29 percent in the last year, from 35 percent to 45 percent. 22 percent play more than three hours a week, compared to 14 percent in 2011.

36 percent of mobile gamers now own a tablet and 74 percent of the tablet gamers did not play mobile games previously.

“Mobile games continue to vie with social games as the hottest sector of the video game industry and that trend shows no sign of waning,” said Dennis Ryan, PopCap’s vice president of worldwide publishing. “Smartphone adoption continues apace and tablet adoption has added considerable fuel to the fire. Even more important, consumers are embracing the shift toward freemium games and other add-on game content purchases, driving the dramatic and rapid shift in the forms of monetization being used by developers and publishers.”

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